Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.

We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money.

I avoid literature whenever possible, because whenever possible I avoid myself.

What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor,' the prince said, 'is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous

Our greatest pleasure, surely, is in fragments, just as we derive the most pleasure from life if we regard it as a fragment, whereas the whole and the complete and the perfect are basically abhorrent.

...we ask: Why suicide? We search for reasons, causes, and so on.... We follow the course of the life he has now so suddenly terminated as far back as we can. For days we are preoccupied with the question: Why suicide? We recollect details. And yet we must say that everything in the suicide's life- for now we know that all his life he was a suicide, led a suicide's existence- is part of the cause, the reason, for his suicide.

Everyone is a virtuoso on his own instrument, but together they add up to an intolerable cacophony.